Einstein, physics and the memory hole

George Orwell wrote of a memory hole, where inconvenient facts end up if ‘they’ don’t want you to remember them. Even if we don’t accept that Einstein was actually a plagiarist, he’s somehow remembered whilst his contemporaries lie forgotten – including earlier relativity theorists.

The point of interest in this book review isn’t whether Einstein was a plagiarist, but the creation of his popular image. Somehow the image of Einstein has been promoted in the popular mind whilst his contemporaries were deliberately sent down the ‘memory hole’, into their present state of obscurity.